Okay, so my ride is a cbr600f 1990 old skool bike and just about every time I go out on her in the evening a car/van driver will rip past me breaking the speed limit to do it. Being old fashioned and uncool, I stick to the speed limit: when I see the speed limit sign (60 mph) on a road I'll wind back the throttle. This seems to irritate the heck out of the car/van when I leave them behind. Then what happens - further down the road the speed limits drops to 40mph - so I roll-off and squeeze the brakes a little and do 40.This gives the car chance to catch up. So then, what do they do? They over-take me when I've slowed down and much of the time it's in a really stupid place to do it - like (this actually happened) on a dual-carriageway at a staggered junction crossing solid lines that indicate not to over-take on them!

Is it coz I'm: on a bike?; on a bike and which is old? quicker than them when going up to the speed limit?; on a bike, which is old and pulled away with ease from them?

I just get the feeling that they're out to prove they can over-take me however they do it!

My reaction to this on the road is to just ride defensively and stay safe but do the speed limit.

Does anyone else get this kinda thing?

Rog

 

cagers don't like bikers period.

it doesn't happen to me.....








....but i don't follow posted speed limits either. i personally feel its safer to go faster than the flow of traffic

 

Personally I don't think it's got much to do with you being on a bike. I'm a speed limit rider and driver and in my experience, some people just feel like you are in the way when you aren't going fast enough for them, whether you are on a bike or in a car.

Some people also drive with a mentality that they need to get past the person ahead of them, regardless. It's like they are subconsciously racing everyone on the road.

 

never really had anything like that happen, but i usually ride out in the middle of nowhere.
however, recently moved from a town of ~6000 people to one with close to 70,000, and just about every time i ride ill have cagers trying to provoke me or mess around with me, and i usually just ignore them and get off whatever road theyre on.

 

Happens to me all the time, same car around town too. Some kid in a piece of shiznit ford probe gt, hood scoop, fart can, euro lights, wing the whole nine who thinks its a real race car. Musta ran into him 10 times or more everytime he tries to either get me to race or pass me, he actually tried to catch up once when he saw me ahead of him, he musta been doin 90 passin cars then the lane goes into 1 for a bridge so keeps the hammer down to get by me, I saw him comin in my rear view, I didn't give me that one tho as he was gunna have to cut me off to get in. 2 down and crack the throttle 60 to 100 comes pretty quick, one of these days he's gunna really **** me off and not like the outcome.... Same kid at a stop light behind me, I had a car in front of me. Guns it to the turn only lane before the green and goes straight to get I front. God I can't wait to see him broken down on the side of the road

 

I was riding home staying a bit ahead of traffic when I spot some kinda newer Mercedes pacing me. I'll admit, I figured I'd just dust him. A couple minutes later the traffic gets heavy and I get back into the left lane when I see him zoom by and dice through traffic pretty frantically. I think he was just trying to play a bit of cat n' mouse, but this isn't exactly an isolated incident. There's always gonna be that guy who doesn't like you 'cause you're on a bike. Although around my area I have noticed that people have been showing me a lot more courtesy, knock on wood...

I did have one peculiar incident where I was riding along on a stretch of highway, just cruising at speed limit, when an SUV comes up next to me and I see the driver waving and yelling something at me with a quizzical look on his face. Eventually figured out that he was actually saying, "What are you doing?? Get moving!" and waving at me to speed up. LOL, I still chuckle when I think about it. Must have been a fellow rider or something.

 

Hey Guys, it's great to hear that you also experience bad behaviour from other drivers on the road in a way. I drive a car and ride a bike and stick to the limit with both and I think that it's really true that some folks just want to get past you if you're not going as fast as they want to go. I do feel that being on my bike attracts yells and stupid behaviour from young road users though. But I think that it mostly to do with where I live. It's a poor area.

The other thing is, 90% of the time when I ride/drive at the speed limit everything is fine, but on the bike I feel less safe when the idiots are trying to get past me etc. Guess I'll just have to get used to it...

Ride safe and don't react when the idiots try to harrass/ scare you.

Thanks for you replies my friends

 

I'm curious which area you are in? I grew up just outside Sheffield. I was just back there in May. I went to Derwent dam and watched the 70th anniversary flypast for the Dambusters. Walking back I saw a few groups of bikes that had made a day of it. Great roads for riding a bike out in the Peak District.

 

Hi Optimus, I'm in Ecclesfield if you know it - just a few mins from Junction 35 of the M1 and just up from Meadowhall. You're right there are some great roads heading out to the Peak District; I think after a little more experience I might go out that way. Seeing and hearing the Bomber go over Derwent must have been great!

 

Yeah, I know the area. I went to Meadowhall while I was back too, stocked up on presents to bring back to Canada.

If you haven't been already, you should head out to Matlock Bath on a Sunday. From where you are it would be a great day trip. Head out on the A57, work you way South to the A6 and down to Matlock. Lovely little town on the Derwent and a mecca for bikers at the weekend. You'll see all sorts of machines and some lovely old school British bikes.